Squiz Picks for 2025 - Listening

December 30, 2025

The things Team Squiz enjoyed listening to in 2025…

Like you, we’re newsletter people - but you might know we’re also pretty handy at podcasting. Just to humblebrag our way out of the year, our Squiz Today podcast spent a good whack of it in the top 10, and our News Club and Squiz Kids pods kicked goals too.

Which is a long way of saying we listen to a lot of stuff, and today, we’ve got our top picks for the podcast episodes and music we had in our ears this year.

Listening

Hilarious talk show host Graham Norton is the guest on this episode of Dish, a podcast hosted by British broadcaster Nick Grimshaw and Michelin-star chef Angela Hartnett. It’s stacked with lols…

This episode of the New York Times science and tech podcast features Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind. With Google’s recent unleashing of AI Mode, it’s a good listen if you want to know more about this AI wave we’re living through.

We’re big proponents of connecting over baked goods, so we very much enjoyed this episode of Conversations with baker/psychologist Helen Goh. She talks about her life and how she came to co-author 2 cookbooks with one of our favourites, Yotam Ottolenghi.

He’s the social psychologist who wrote The Anxious Generation, which has influenced the global conversation about how young is too young to expose kids to the online world. It’s not all grim - it’s actually got a good dose of hope, and who doesn’t need a bit of that?

Rachael Brown became a familiar voice this year for those who tuned into the ABC’s podcast Mushroom Case Daily. But her regular gig is hosting the Unravel podcast, and this look at Greg Lynn’s case - the guy found guilty and then acquitted of murder in Victoria’s High Country - is so sad, but so compelling. It’s one we binged…

This is one we’ve discovered in the last week, after it was featured in The Atlantic’s best pods of 2025. The premise is that the host Jonathan Goldstein and his crack team help guests solve a mystery from their lives - from finding a lost childhood crush to getting a prized CD boxset back from music star Moby. Start with ‘Gregor’ and his story about the latter…

Keeping little ones cool this summer

Those with little ones (or shopping for them) know the drill - summer heat plus kids equals constant outfit changes and cranky wake ups. Love to Dream's new bamboo range tackles both. The fabric is clever - it stretches with every move, making the what-time-is-it nappy changes less of a wrestling match, and the bamboo in it helps with sweaty backs for a better sleep all round. The range covers everything from bodysuits to PJs, and they've built them to survive your washing machine's heavy rotation. Worth bookmarking for baby shower gifts too... Check the collection out here.

Our top tunes…

Three words: thumping 80s tunes. Prepare yourself…

Brian Wilson, the band’s co-creator and creative force, died this year - his musical stylings inspired everyone from Elton John to Fleetwood Mac. Vale…

Some Squizical listens…

Our very own Bryce Corbett spent last January on an adventure through the US and Europe to find out what good looks like in delivering media literacy to kids. What he found was that nations that take protecting their democracy seriously from the threat of mis and disinformation online were miles ahead of Oz. It’s something we’re working on - to get our government and civic institutions to come on board. Wish us luck in 2026…

In his first podcast interview of 2025, ahead of the federal election, PM Anthony Albanese joined Claire Kimball and Kate Watson on News Club to talk about his political values. It’s as relevant today as it was almost a year ago if you want to understand where he’s coming from on a wide range of issues.

We’re not done yet…

In your inbox tomorrow - our picks of what to read from 2025. And then we’ll be back in your inbox on Monday, 5 January for another year of doing what we do best - being your shortcut to being informed.